Australia To Be First International Venture For Indian Ride Hailing Firm Ola

In wheat would be the first international venture for Indian ride-sharing company Ola, the company is all slated to enter the Australian market.

The company has plans to launch its services for t in the three large cities of the country – Sydney, Melbourne and Perth and announced that it would begin recruitment of drivers for these cities soon.

Uber – the main rival of Ola in the Indian market, is the dominant players in the Australian taxi-hailing app industry.

The rapid growth in the sale and use of smartphones in India drove the fast growth of Bangalore based Ola, which was set up in 2011.

The company now operates in over 110 cities in India has more than one million enlisted drivers and claims to possess a customer base of approximately 125 million in India.

Ola said that it would offer a “high-quality and affordable travel experience” in Australia, even though its plans still require regulatory approval to be launch in Australia.

“We are very excited about launching Ola in Australia and see immense potential for the ride-sharing ecosystem which embraces new technology and innovation,” said Ola’s chief executive and co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal.

Japan’s SoftBank has done sizable investments in both Uber and Ola. A chunk of the US ride hailing company was purchased by a consortium led by SoftBank just last week.

Ever since the San Francisco-based firm started business operation in India in 2013, it has had to face fierce competition from Ola.

While there are conflicting views on the size of the companies, boht Ola and Uber now account for about 90 per cent of the total market in India.

While Ola had 44.2 per cent market share in middle of 2017, Uber had a market share of approximately 50 per cent in the Indian market according to a report from research firm KalaGato.

However, Ola is operational in 110 cities across India while Uber operates in just 29 Indian cities.

For the diverse Indian market, some of the technological developments of Ola such as wifi, films and music for customers goes well for the company.

And many would consider the move of the Indian indigenous start-up – Ola, venturing into the Australia market a great achievement, despite the very competitive nature of the industry.

Taxify would be another competitor of Ola in the Australian ride hailing market. Taxify is a Europe based company that entered the Australian market through its services in Sydney just last year and has since also started operation in Melbourne in January this year.

However, Uber is well placed for taking on its new competitors in Australia according to statistics by research firm Roy Morgan.

About 3.7 million passengers were ferried by Uber in the three months to December by the US company that was allowed legal status in the country in 2015. That number is about four times the number of passengers it transported in the same period two years ago.